Unpaywall is one of the most important resources for open access data and has been part of CDI since November 2023. Our user community has shown great interest in the collection as it supports libraries’ growing need to access more trusted content freely.

The Unpaywall collection is updated in CDI twice a week, with changes reflected after each update cycle.

As Unpaywall aims to maximize open access availability, it provides links to various OA versions based on what is accessible, including preprint versions of articles. Because Unpaywall records in CDI can be merged with published version records based on a DOI, the Unpaywall open access links may sometimes lead to a preprint version of an article.

Unpaywall content is available for activation in Alma, SFX, and 360 as follows:

• Unpaywall for CDI  (Collection ID: Alma - 615310000000000937; SFX - 5310000000000937; 360 DBID - UNPAY)
• Unpaywall for CDI: Periodical Content  (Collection ID: Alma - 61563712280000041; SFX - 563712280000041; 360 DBID - ADTOC)
• Unpaywall for CDI: Monographs and Miscellaneous Content  (Collection ID: Alma - 61563712290000041; SFX - 563712290000041; 360 DBID - ABOKW) 

The Unpaywall for CDI collection includes all content, along with two content-specific collections for periodicals and monographs. These two collections are designed for customers who wish to activate only specific types of Unpaywall content. Records are assigned to these collections based solely on the content type designations provided by Unpaywall. In some cases, records may appear in CDI with a different content type due to merging with records from other CDI sources.

By definition, the open access links, which direct to many different platforms and websites, are dynamic and may not be as stable as subscription links.

To allow for a faster processing of corrections where applicable, Unpaywall launched a self-service portal at https://unpaywall.org/fix allowing users to enter a data correction for a specific article identified by a DOI value.

At this time, this self-service portal doesn’t support reporting issues related specifically to PDF links. Unpaywall is actively working to enable this feature, and we expect it to be added in the coming weeks. 
Reporting a correction required for multiple DOIs from the same journal also cannot be done via a self-service portal. Such correction requests can be submitted as support tickets to Ex Libris, and we will relay them to Unpaywall.

September 2nd update: The feature supporting reporting issues related specifically to PDF links is still in development. We will update this article once it is live. 

• Article last edited: 02-SEP-2025